Sosnowski the GOP choice for 69th state rep.

A former DeKalb alderman has won the Republican nomination Tuesday for the open 69th State Representative seat.

Joe Sosnowski received 7,056 votes in Tuesday’s primary election, compared to Michele Corirossi at 2,324 and Thaddaeus Loffelmacher at 2,284, according to unofficial results from The Associated Press.

All three were seeking their party’s nomination for a seat that has been held for nearly three decades by GOP state Rep. Ron Wait of Belvidere. Wait decided to leave the seat to run for the newly created Boone County resident circuit court judgeship.

“It looks like we did it,” Sosnowski said Tuesday night. “I feel great.”

Sosnowski thanked his family, friends and supporters for getting behind him, and credited his grass roots campaigning style for helping secure the nomination.

The 69th State Representative district encompasses all of Boone County, as well as parts of DeKalb and Winnebago counties. In DeKalb County, the district includes the Genoa, Kingston and Kirkland areas.

Voters in the DeKalb County portion of the district also favored Sosnowski, who garnered 526 votes in the county. Corirossi had 183 and Loffelmacher had 166, according to unofficial vote totals from the DeKalb County Clerk’s Office.

Sosnowski, 32, is married with two sons and a daughter. He earned a Bachelor of Arts in English from Northern Illinois University and is the director of institutional advancement at Rockford Christian Schools.

He is in his second term as an alderman in Rockford and was an alderman in DeKalb from 1999-2003

Corirossi and Loffelmacher did not immediately return phone messages left Tuesday night.

Sosnowski will face Democrat Ray Pendzinski and Green Party candidate Daniel Lindsey in the November general election. Both men were unopposed in their respective party’s primaries, but vote totals for them were not immediately available as of 10 p.m. Tuesday.